Distribution method change is not the end of the world, on the contrary it's a step forward.
OMG that's how i make sense of things too.
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iMovie '08 Was Originally Called 'First Cut', Ubillos on Final Cut Pro X
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Distribution method change is not the end of the world, on the contrary it's a step forward.
OMG that's how i make sense of things too.
Out of curiosity, are you forced to go to FCP X right now?
It seems to me that with all the uproar over this, the strongest statement the video editing community could make is to NOT adopt the product at this time, and wait until any substandard/missing features are addressed by Apple.
There are a lot of "This sucks! I can't use it!" statements being made....so people...don't use it.
Just sayin'
Digital downloads are a step forward, yes.
Discontinuing DVD sales today is not.
See the point?
These two points together are the real issue.
Advancing the technology, cool. Bringing in a new way of doing things, fantastic. Getting feedback from the userbase, all the better.
Problem is, they didn't handle it as well as they could have. Betas (public or closed) would have helped. A proper transitional period where you can buy either version would have smoothed a lot of edges. Make it look like FCPX is the successor, not the only way it's going to be anymore. At least they shouldn't have dropped the old version before the new version had feature-parity.
I'm not an editor. I don't do much with video. Played briefly with iMovieHD but didn't have a camcorder until my iBook was too old, or a new mac until HD was canned completely. Did not get on with it at all. Oddly, this looks closer to what I'd want to use. (Actually, it looks like what I wish iMovie had become, and what is probably a decent successor to FCE)
And that's my point. This looks cool and interesting to me, a complete amateur. Someone with no pre-existing workflow. Someone who is not a "Pro".
I doubt it needs that kind of testing. Apple just wants people to use it and tell what they think (all the moaning about lack of feature x put aside).
Actually, on every project I've ever worked on there has been no molly cuddling. It's always been 'this is how it is. Do it or get out.' In the professional world, there's no time for words that make you feel warm and fuzzy. Step up to the plate, or don't. I'd argue that Apple are being very professional by realising that some people wouldn't like this upgrade but are not going out of their way to wrap us FCP users in cotton wool.
For everyone posting on this forum so much, you could be poking and prodding around in this software to see how it works and what you think would make it better, and then feeding that back to Apple. You think the companies that make plug-ins for FCP or big time Hollywood editors are doing anything else?
This is my last reply in this particular thread. The whining of techs who are beginning to understand they'll be obselite soon is overwhelming. As I said earlier, use this time to get ahead of the pack or don't. Your choice.
Tell that to the folks with data caps. Cloud computing and the app store seem at odds with ISPs, these days.
As for FCP.. I was an iMovie '06 user. When iMovie '08 was released, I found the interface confusing and nonintuitive. I all but stopped editing movies, after that.
For the consumers, no. ;-)
For the professionals, who probably had a reason for choosing that particular enterprise solution over the competitions, definitely.
Staying stagnant is never the answer. However, there is something to be said for recognising that people use (and stick with) your product (your brand) because of what it is. And I've seen other software (amateur, pro, games, anything really) where the same thing has happened. A company comes out with something new but slaps an old brand name on it. It's still good. But it's not what people go to the brand for.
Like the original article said, if Apple had called this something completely different, or even just slightly different(*), there would have been none of this outcry.
This does not look like bad software. It does not, however, look like what people except from "Final Cut Pro". Sticking an "X" on does not make enough of a branding change to change people's expectations. A new or altered name, however, would
(*) Final Cut Advanced, anyone?
Or something similar to keep the "final Cut" vibe whilst still conveying the sence of something totaly new.
An organization has no option if it needs to add an additional license of Final Cut Studio.
Wow. Just wow. You people are nuts. As an editing professional myself, I have been digging into FCPX over the last few days. While it still needs some work, it's going to increase my productivity 10 fold. Background rendering is fast and organizing clips is a breeze.
The old version of FCP has a very steep learning curve. It's complicated and takes almost a doctorate to master. It's very easy to get frustrated. FCPX is MUCH easier to understand. Anyone, pro or not can jump into this program and put out some pretty darn good videos. It seems that many professionals have a stick up their rear and think that a program must be expensive and complicated in order to be a "professional" product. Are you guys so threatened that some teenager is going to swoop in and make you look bad?
Come on people. Times are changing. Get with the program. I have been doing video editing for 25 years and FCPX has made it fun again. I think you guys are looking at this all wrong.
The old version of FCP has a very steep learning curve. It's complicated and takes almost a doctorate to master. It's very easy to get frustrated. FCPX is MUCH easier to understand. Anyone, pro or not can jump into this program and put out some pretty darn good videos. It seems that many professionals have a stick up their rear and think that a program must be expensive and complicated in order to be a "professional" product. Are you guys so threatened that some teenager is going to swoop in and make you look bad?
Come on people. Times are changing. Get with the program. I have been doing video editing for 25 years and FCPX has made it fun again. I think you guys are looking at this all wrong.
I like the way you think - the way that Apple think. We should work for Apple, no?
Seriously though, SO true. The pro editors are feeling threatened by the advance from the antiquated way of working, so vent on MR, showing how professional they are *sigh*.
Stop blaming Ubillos.
This is pure Apple arrogance in 2011.
Look at the MobileMe > iCloud transition. Its the same thing. They're starting from scratch on an established product, and its pissing off current users because they're getting some thing new that is wholly incomplete.
I'd rather pay for MobileMe than get iCloud for free, thats how bad it is.
Same with Final Cut X. It's new and incomplete, by comparison to what it replaces. I'm sure its a great program and will grow over time, but its a step backward for the meantime and will be a long time before it catches up. Same with iCloud.
Both Final Cut X & iCloud will ultimately be better than what they replace, but not immediately, to the disappointment of many many users.
This is pure Apple arrogance in 2011.
Look at the MobileMe > iCloud transition. Its the same thing. They're starting from scratch on an established product, and its pissing off current users because they're getting some thing new that is wholly incomplete.
I'd rather pay for MobileMe than get iCloud for free, thats how bad it is.
Same with Final Cut X. It's new and incomplete, by comparison to what it replaces. I'm sure its a great program and will grow over time, but its a step backward for the meantime and will be a long time before it catches up. Same with iCloud.
Both Final Cut X & iCloud will ultimately be better than what they replace, but not immediately, to the disappointment of many many users.
you should have given it time, my friend, and read the manual or viewed the youtube tutorials. even the 'pros' had to study the innerworkings of their tools to make it sing.
I don't know man I learned FCP in a day (from coming from premiere).
Still have not got my head around iMovie 11.
Sometimes easier makes it harder, if that makes any sense.
My feeling is although there's more money in the consumer sector, that doesn't mean the pros are unimportant. [hyperbole] Kinda like the difference between sanitation engineers and pro basketball players. The basketball players make more money, so does that mean everyone should be a basketball player and no one a sanitation engineer? I'll put it this way: what would you rather live without, basketball or a toilet that drains properly? [/hyperbole] Yeah, I'm exaggerating for effect, but you get where I'm going. I know there are other options, but with the talent, money & resources Apple has or can get, why can't they focus on both consumers and professionals?
Also, I kinda miss some of the features of iMovie '06. Like some people on this thread, I'm just a consumer and I did some home movies/slideshows of when my sister and later my cousin got married, plus I work at a school that uses iMovie for school projects. Basic stuff, but I liked having the option to put in cool titles, effects, transitions, and chapter markers. Geethree.com and some really cool plug-ins for iMovie '06. But iMovie '08 removed a lot of the features I liked. Though I do find it easier to import and find my movie clips in iMovie '08. I just wish iMovie '08 kept all the features of iMovie '06. Tough I don't use FCP, I wish they did the same.
I'm the kind of person where I could understand changing something if it needs to, but not change for the sake of change. If it ain't broken, don't fix it.
Understandable and it does make sense. I think the paradigm shift might be giving you some problems. You will get there.
Progress is tough and often blind
I know many will disagree with me but in some ways what Apple is doing is a good thing.
First, let me state I disagree with some of their hard sell of the new 'way'. FCP 7 should not be immediately discontinued and shelved. Many people make their living with Pro software and ANY new upgrade, especially a rewrite is fraught with issues and growing pains. Apple should still make this available. I also disagree with the whole App Store force feed. This is the future, no doubt. But intrinsicly I hate having it forced to me as if I have no choice.
That said, Apple is pushing progress. What makes Apple great is that they have no sacred cows. They constantly think of ways to think outside the norm. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
To push the envelope of thinking, a company has to take risks, and do things differently. Progress is all about thinking differently. Put differently innovation by its deasign is doing something in a new manner. For innovation to succeed it usually has to do what it accomplishes better, faster, easier or cheaper than what it replaces.
Apple has constanly innovated and forced changes our way. Some were winners, others major failures, and many just evolutionary changes. But without these spurts forward we all stagnate. How many of us scoffed at the first iPod. An expensive MP3 player to carry so much of my music, more than I could practically listen too at any given point. Apple showed the world a different way to interact with their music and changed the way we do this. Even going back to 1984, the Mac was different. The GUI was relatively new, and the original Mac caused people to think about how they interacted with their computers in a different manner. Some faought hard and resisted the GUI and loved their command line use. But in the end, for mosts tasks the GUI windowed interface we have come to use was superior.
For Apple to remain competetive and relevant it must constantly innovate and evolve. Part of that is reacting to technology. The shift from PPC to Intel is an example of that. Wholesale shifts in code had to be rewritten, new APIs develoepd and evaloed. Cocoa was not wonderful at version 1.0. It is a far more robust and feature rich development environment now, as is OSX. An app like FCP was legacy. Millions of lines of code written in older development forma for a different architecture. At some point you take a chance and begin anew.
So, FCPX. I am not a professional video editor, as i do not make my living doing this. I did go to film school and I have made many films for the museum and aquarium industry so I appreciate the uses of FCP. Is FCPX what i wanted it to be? Yes and no. It is different and different is hard. For starters, I have to start anew as it is a challenge to import old projects if not impossible. So I took some of my raw work and gave it a shot. I admit I was lost at first. I kept trying to do it the FCP 7 way and ran into roadblocks. When I thought of it as FCP8 instead of FCPX I hated it. I then read some tips and feedback on David Pogue's interview and realized I was going about this all wrong. I tried again with a new perspective.
FCPX is a different application. It does have some very nice features and abilities. I was able to make what i think of as a nicer cut of my final video than I did originally in FCP7. Not because FCP7 was worse, but because FCPX was different and I approached the entire process differently.
Apple is making us Think Different. It can be a good thing. For those that reley on any application for production and critical use, a 1.0 product is not for you. Ideally you can run side by side and ease yourself in. Alas, Apple is making up jump into the cold water with both feet. Even Lion is forcing us to starting shifting our paradigm about GUI and how we interact with our computer. Lets face it, the GUI mouse driven windowed world has been around for 30+ years. We have added on tons of useful features, but we are just doing incremental enhancements, not anything evolutionary. I think Apple is positioning Lion as a stepping stone to help teach us to interact differently with our computers. It will be hard and may of us will resist. I like my iPhone and iPad but I don't wany my MacPro and iMac to act like one. yet. Howevermuch like the original iPod, I have not yet experienced the full benefits and had time to create my own workflow that may in fact be superior.
FCPX won't be for everyone. I suspect Apple will listen and return more of the missing features in future updates. As the product matures I am confident it will be production ready. Why did they release it now? Hard to say. Business logic says the product is ready to go and will generate sales and can grown upon. Some say this bumpy start has tarnished the name of Final Cut and perhaps it has. But a computer and software is a tool If the tool gets better and that is validated by others then most will realize they are at a disadvantage by not using it. So for fome FCPX is ready, for some pros it needs more time. For others, a vocal but still a minority, they will resist change as hard as they can. If you are in a creative business and resist new ideas, it may be time to rethink things a bit. New is different. I can be better and worse, often at the same time. But the set up you were using last week still works the same so for now you have lost nothing and gained something new to play with.
My last point is the App Store. I like the convenience. Instant gratification. No waitng for UPS or FedEx and shipping. I like the ...... well, that is all I like. For a $30 app, no disk is not a big deal. For a $300 app, or an OS I feel a disc is a requirement. I FEEL that way. Can I work without a disk? Probably, and Apple thinks so. I would wish Apple would offer a disk version of Lion. What I fear is that Apple will make this all idiot proof and make it great for those whom never replace or upgarde a hard drive themselves, etc. For them, this will be a superior experience and just 'work'. For us that after 6 months want a faster larger drive, then we fall outside the Apple norm. I can hope Apple will offer us a solution, but knowing the company they do not like thoser that fit outside their box. And that is the flaw with Apple. They think outside the box and innovate and push the industry to new places. Yet they disallow others to do the thinking outside of their box.
To those that hate FCPX I suggest you actually try it, and work with it for a bit. It is different. It is a 1.0 release. I is missing features. I is NOT ready for critical prduction and it will require some new learning. But it is beter in many ways and it will alloow you to think of your projects differently.
I know many will disagree with me but in some ways what Apple is doing is a good thing.
First, let me state I disagree with some of their hard sell of the new 'way'. FCP 7 should not be immediately discontinued and shelved. Many people make their living with Pro software and ANY new upgrade, especially a rewrite is fraught with issues and growing pains. Apple should still make this available. I also disagree with the whole App Store force feed. This is the future, no doubt. But intrinsicly I hate having it forced to me as if I have no choice.
That said, Apple is pushing progress. What makes Apple great is that they have no sacred cows. They constantly think of ways to think outside the norm. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
To push the envelope of thinking, a company has to take risks, and do things differently. Progress is all about thinking differently. Put differently innovation by its deasign is doing something in a new manner. For innovation to succeed it usually has to do what it accomplishes better, faster, easier or cheaper than what it replaces.
Apple has constanly innovated and forced changes our way. Some were winners, others major failures, and many just evolutionary changes. But without these spurts forward we all stagnate. How many of us scoffed at the first iPod. An expensive MP3 player to carry so much of my music, more than I could practically listen too at any given point. Apple showed the world a different way to interact with their music and changed the way we do this. Even going back to 1984, the Mac was different. The GUI was relatively new, and the original Mac caused people to think about how they interacted with their computers in a different manner. Some faought hard and resisted the GUI and loved their command line use. But in the end, for mosts tasks the GUI windowed interface we have come to use was superior.
For Apple to remain competetive and relevant it must constantly innovate and evolve. Part of that is reacting to technology. The shift from PPC to Intel is an example of that. Wholesale shifts in code had to be rewritten, new APIs develoepd and evaloed. Cocoa was not wonderful at version 1.0. It is a far more robust and feature rich development environment now, as is OSX. An app like FCP was legacy. Millions of lines of code written in older development forma for a different architecture. At some point you take a chance and begin anew.
So, FCPX. I am not a professional video editor, as i do not make my living doing this. I did go to film school and I have made many films for the museum and aquarium industry so I appreciate the uses of FCP. Is FCPX what i wanted it to be? Yes and no. It is different and different is hard. For starters, I have to start anew as it is a challenge to import old projects if not impossible. So I took some of my raw work and gave it a shot. I admit I was lost at first. I kept trying to do it the FCP 7 way and ran into roadblocks. When I thought of it as FCP8 instead of FCPX I hated it. I then read some tips and feedback on David Pogue's interview and realized I was going about this all wrong. I tried again with a new perspective.
FCPX is a different application. It does have some very nice features and abilities. I was able to make what i think of as a nicer cut of my final video than I did originally in FCP7. Not because FCP7 was worse, but because FCPX was different and I approached the entire process differently.
Apple is making us Think Different. It can be a good thing. For those that reley on any application for production and critical use, a 1.0 product is not for you. Ideally you can run side by side and ease yourself in. Alas, Apple is making up jump into the cold water with both feet. Even Lion is forcing us to starting shifting our paradigm about GUI and how we interact with our computer. Lets face it, the GUI mouse driven windowed world has been around for 30+ years. We have added on tons of useful features, but we are just doing incremental enhancements, not anything evolutionary. I think Apple is positioning Lion as a stepping stone to help teach us to interact differently with our computers. It will be hard and may of us will resist. I like my iPhone and iPad but I don't wany my MacPro and iMac to act like one. yet. Howevermuch like the original iPod, I have not yet experienced the full benefits and had time to create my own workflow that may in fact be superior.
FCPX won't be for everyone. I suspect Apple will listen and return more of the missing features in future updates. As the product matures I am confident it will be production ready. Why did they release it now? Hard to say. Business logic says the product is ready to go and will generate sales and can grown upon. Some say this bumpy start has tarnished the name of Final Cut and perhaps it has. But a computer and software is a tool If the tool gets better and that is validated by others then most will realize they are at a disadvantage by not using it. So for fome FCPX is ready, for some pros it needs more time. For others, a vocal but still a minority, they will resist change as hard as they can. If you are in a creative business and resist new ideas, it may be time to rethink things a bit. New is different. I can be better and worse, often at the same time. But the set up you were using last week still works the same so for now you have lost nothing and gained something new to play with.
My last point is the App Store. I like the convenience. Instant gratification. No waitng for UPS or FedEx and shipping. I like the ...... well, that is all I like. For a $30 app, no disk is not a big deal. For a $300 app, or an OS I feel a disc is a requirement. I FEEL that way. Can I work without a disk? Probably, and Apple thinks so. I would wish Apple would offer a disk version of Lion. What I fear is that Apple will make this all idiot proof and make it great for those whom never replace or upgarde a hard drive themselves, etc. For them, this will be a superior experience and just 'work'. For us that after 6 months want a faster larger drive, then we fall outside the Apple norm. I can hope Apple will offer us a solution, but knowing the company they do not like thoser that fit outside their box. And that is the flaw with Apple. They think outside the box and innovate and push the industry to new places. Yet they disallow others to do the thinking outside of their box.
To those that hate FCPX I suggest you actually try it, and work with it for a bit. It is different. It is a 1.0 release. I is missing features. I is NOT ready for critical prduction and it will require some new learning. But it is beter in many ways and it will alloow you to think of your projects differently.
What if iMovie '06 was perfect for 20% of the video editing crowd but not so great for 60% of the video editing crowd. And iMovie '08 was perfect for 50% of the movie editing crowd but not so great for 30%.
With the release of iMovie '08 (and the continued availability of iMovie '06) Apple now had covered 70% instead of 20%. Sounds like a great move.
But naturally those 20% still preferring iMovie '06 felt abandoned, knowing that there would not be any improvements, new features, bug fixes to their preferred solution anymore. And that they might have to wait until iMovie '11 to get what they considered a successor of iMovie '06 (or even longer, maybe they consider now FCP X as their ideal successor to iMovie '06). Thus, in the short term, Apple went from making 20% happy to making 50% happy. Sounds still like a great move, except that in the short term negative public opinion weighs more heavily than positive opinion.
The point being, instead of trying to cater to everybody, ie, producing video editing software in the form of
a) a iMovie '08 based kind of UI (the entrance level)
b) a iMovie '06 based kind of UI (the slightly advanced level)
c) a FCE based kind of UI (the low-budget conventional advanced level)
d) a FCP X based kind of UI (the simplified yet highly advanced level)
e) a FCP7 based kind of UI (the traditional highly advanced level)
Apple decided to condense these five lines into two. There is no denying that all five types of applications had or have a significant following (maybe FCE less so), so whichever two lines they had chosen to follow, they would not have made 100% of the people happy.
So, what should Apple do? Produce five different video editing applications? How is that about confusing people and instilling fear that they might not maintain all five lines forever?
Can therefore somebody please explain me how Apple could have released an iMovie '08 type of application and an FCP X type of application without pissing off a significant proportion of people? It is simply not possible to create something new without demoting something existing, even if you were to issue a guarantee that the existing would be maintained, nobody would believe you because everybody knows that maintaining five lines of video editing software is not a realistic option.
Thus, once you have a significant market share, you only have two options:
1) cater to your constituency and only make slow and small changes, essentially stay stuck in the past (eg, Windows XP which is still going strong in business)
2) annoy your constituency from time to time by throwing old things out and introducing something new.
If you have bought Apple software (and hardware) and did not know, and thus accepted, that Apple leans much more to option (2), you were either not paying attention or thinking that collective willpower is able to change Apple's way.
What's up? Did the crystal clear light of reality just make your head explode?
Do it again! I'll film it and then edit it in FCPX in no time!
I'll call it "Green exploding head. Under a bridge."
Software downloads + DVD sales have been around for a while. The only way to get people to adopt something is to just pull it. Apple did it with the floppy disk and now they're doing it with their software.
If software download is the only way to get an app then, maybe surprisingly to you, you'll be using software download to get it. Thus, forcing people to stop using DVD disks for their software. See the point?
No Photo Editor Either
What do you expect from a company that can't do a decent photo editor?
What do you expect from a company that can't do a decent photo editor?